Help! Did The Facebook Algorithm Update Drop My Facebook Reach?

Perhaps you’ve noticed a decline in your company’s Facebook reach in the last few weeks.

The drop started near the beginning of 2018 as the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, proclaimed to the world around mid-January,

“I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions. The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups.

As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

What does this mean?

Basically, to increase more meaningful social interactions, content from friends, family, and groups takes precedence over content from businesses, brands, and media. Facebook shifted the priority from content to interactions and engagement.

They want viewers to like what they read on Facebook so much that they react and respond to the content, not merely consume it (and leave Facebook’s platform).

So how did this change affect your organization’s business page? Will you continue to see a steady decline in Facebook organic results?

At first, we speculated how this would affect Facebook business pages. Now that it’s been 6 weeks, we have more insight into the results of this update.

What to expect

Larger businesses who already have a significant social following and receive consistent engagement aren’t as affected by these Facebook algorithm updates. Smaller businesses, on the other hand, are more or less forced to “pay to play.”

Organic reach isn’t enough anymore. If you want more than a handful of people to see your posts, you’ll need to back each post with a social budget.

However, this has been the case since 2014 when Facebook turned off the “faucet.” During the past several years, Facebook has been trying to fill the News Feed with real stories from real people.

When it comes to your business page, the content should be no different.

Who are the faces behind your brand? What do you stand for? What’s your story – in terms of providing a specific business result?

Real people will always care about real stories. So in that sense, Facebook hasn’t changed a thing.

So what can you do despite the Facebook algorithm update?

We have 3 ideas that will help you maintain and improve your social media marketing strategy. We’ve seen these strategies yield great success across our clients’ pages.

Tell the Right Story

Even on social media, your story should explain more about your business, products, or services. Your followers will get bored if you’re simply trying to sell All. The. Time.

Endear your potential customers to your brand by acting like a human. How can you help them? What do you want your customers to think, feel, know, or do after reading your Facebook posts?

If your posts don’t effectively communicate the result you want, you might continue to see a decline in reach.

If possible, try to get them to respond in the comments. Ask questions. Start a conversation. And don’t forget about follow-up!

Facebook Live is a great way to be authentic. You don’t have to be profound – just communicate the advantage you offer to your clients. No matter what Facebook says, video isn’t going anywhere.

Pay to Play

This recent Facebook algorithm update hasn’t changed paid ads, so continue to leverage this opportunity to get your message in front of the right people, especially if you’re a small business.

Do you need to increase your social budget? Maybe. But putting something behind each post is better than getting only a handful of eyes on your brand. Start with whatever your budget allows and go from there.

Use Facebook Insights

If you don’t track how your posts are performing, how will you know if your social strategy is working?

Facebook Insights help you analyze what types of posts get the most engagement. What got the most likes/reactions? How many comments?

You can also discover the best time to post/schedule to reach the best results – how many times a week? A month? You can shift your budget to spend extra on the sort of posts that get great results.

Align Business Goals with Marketing Goals

We create a digital marketing strategy that aligns our marketing execution with your top-level organizational goals through an analysis of your competition, current marketing program, target persona, and company goals.